Fake Patient Reviews Are Making It Increasingly Hard To Seek Medical Help On Google, Yelp And Other Directory Sites
https://www.washingtonpost.comFrom rehab centers to family doctors, patients trying to find good medical care are increasingly finding fake consumer reviews — and there are no signs of an imminent crackdown.
Posting fraudulent reviews may be illegal under federal and state laws if there is financial gain involved. But enforcement is scattershot, and it is hard to find cases of disciplinary action from professional bodies for review fraud. Records from the Medical Board of California, the state with the largest number of practicing physicians, show no actions taken against doctors over the past four years for fake reviews.
Although there is no easy way to quantify how many physicians and health-care providers are faking reviews, Curtis Boyd, the CEO and founder of Objection Co., which specializes in identifying fake local business reviews for business owners, estimated that as many as 20 percent of businesses in the health-care industry including doctors have suspicious review activity on Google and Yelp.
